Last week I visited the Dr. for some allergy problems and my BP was high all of a sudden. I think at that visit it was around 170/115. I’ve been watching it since then, and visited again yesterday. It averages about 158/90 and sometimes hits the 160s/100s.
So blood work and urinalysis came back normal. Dr. explained that kidney problems may cause high blood pressure, but that’s apparently not a concern now.
Just throwing this out there because their office is closed until 1, and I won’t have time to sit on hold to talk to them until tomorrow morning.
No clue, but I’ll be following this thread as well because I’m in the exact same boat, except I had an ear infection, not allergy problems. I’ve never had issues with high blood pressure in the past, and as recent as January it was fine. Then I go in to the walk-in clinic last month and suddenly it’s hovering in the 145/150 over 80/90 range.
My real doc did blood work and urinalysis, everything is fine. Now I’m on high blood pressure meds. I’m not happy with this. No weight gain, no life changes, nothing like that since last January when it was all fine. Hell, it was fine 2 months ago - on 5/22 it was 122/70 (slightly high but nothing to worry about) and then on 7/1 it’s 160/98. WTF?
The odds are that it is essential hypertension, for which there is no explanation. It is almost always discovered during a doctor’s visit for some other reason, since for most people there are no symptoms.
“It can’t be high, I’ve never had a problem with it!” “Its always been low!”
I need to warn you that I am neither a TV doctor, nor have I ever stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, but I’m going to go way out on a limb and suggest that it means you’re not likely to die anytime soon. Most people are happy about that.
And BP spikes sometimes. Follow your doctor’s lead when it comes to worrying and his/her advice regarding treatment.
I stayed at a Courtyard by Marriott for 2 nights the weekend before last, does that count?
But yeah, you may be predisposed to it, or it may be out of the blue.
I had great blood pressure - despite being quite overweight - until my last pregnancy, where I developed full-on pregnancy-induced hypertension that progressed to pre-eclampsia then HELLP syndrome (high BP, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets). The BP normalized *immediately after delivery.
Then it went up again about 18 months later and I’ve been on meds for it ever since. Even when I got my weight down to fairly near ideal for my height, it was elevated.
Being ill, or a temporarily unusual diet, can certainly play havoc with BP and other standard readings (my blood sugar went through the roof when my gallbladder wanted to come out and play).
I imagine the doc will do one or both of the following:
Suggest you watch diet / exercise very carefully for a few weeks, then come back for a recheck
Start you on a low dose of medication, then come back for a recheck.
What do you mean it was high “All of a sudden”? Do you have it tested regularly and it’s never been high before?
I have high blood pressure and all of the labs as you put it are normal.
In my case, Dr advised a combination of being (slightly) over weight, not getting enough cardio exercise, drinking too much, smoking too much, caffeine and work related stress all added up.
So I’ve stopped smoking and try to exercise more, with taking tablets I average around 140/90.
170/115 is not good at all. The other numbers are just every day not good. keep an eye on it. If you were washing antihistamines and decongestants down with buckets of coffee after a sleepless night then that would explain the spike.
My blood pressure hovered for more than a decade around 130/80. My doctor wasn’t all that worried about it, something to check periodically but not high enough to medicate. It was the same at my checkup in August 2013, but while in hospital for four nights in December it stayed in the 180/100 range and that was entirely new. Been on medication for it since.
I’m on generic losartan, 50mg twice a day. I bought a wrist monitor that had good reviews from Walgreens and check it before bed a few nights a week. Last check with doctor was two months ago and it was back to my old 130/80. We discussed trying me off the birth control I’ve been on forever just to see if there’s any effect, and in the two months I’ve been off that my pressure has been more like 110/60. I hear blood whooshing in my ears occasionally, and it turns out when that’s happening my pressure is at its lowest.
I guess I don’t have much of a point, other than it’s mostly guesswork as to why my pressure would go through the roof after being pretty much the same for so long. Maybe the birth control had something to do with the high-normal range, but all else being equal, why the spike in December? Who knows. I had no other changes.
Well, I was on Sudafed prior to my first appt…the Dr. that time told me to knock it off, which I did. I have been using antihistamine eye drops and they just put me on a week of Pred, so that will probably raise it a little bit.
I mean it’s high all of a sudden becauseI was just at the Dr. about two months ago and it was normal then.
I get plenty of cardio, I have a normal BMI, I don’t smoke, I do drink and could probably drink less, but apparetnly my kidney function is fine. I haven’t been getting less sleep than normal lately (I sleep poorly as a rule), and work stress is less that it’s been in a while. If it was a sodium problem, that would reflect in the kidney function results too right? Still drinking coffee, though…guess I should switch to tea for the time being.
The nurse I talked to yesterday afternoon stressed to me that everything was very normal…I was a bit disappointed they didn’t check cholesterol because I was just curious.
I’m going to go through the Pred cycle and watch the BP, and schedule an appt. next week if it doesn’t start to come down.
156/97 this morning.
ETA the info about essential hypertension was interesting, too. I haven’t decided if it’s more comforting that something’s causing the hypertension, or that I’ll possibly never figure it out…
80 % of people develop high blood pressure by the time they are 80yrs old. So the start of that curve is just prior to middle age, for it to begin to manifest.
Learning to treat high blood pressure is a big piece of extending life expectancy from 57yrs to 70+yrs.
